


Gray and Green

by MunchPalace



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-03
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2019-11-08 23:34:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17990627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MunchPalace/pseuds/MunchPalace
Summary: Annabeth is an active member of the debate team, a straight A student, and has a crush on Luke, one of the most popular boys in school. Percy is the school's new star swimmer but is in danger of being dropped for having a low GPA. Percy goes to Annabeth for help, and both end up learning more about each other then they could have imagined.





	1. Percy Gets Peer Pressured

Percy is currently, as one might expect, underwater. Really if anyone was to ask around for Percy’s location, underwater is probably one of the top five choices at any given time. This is widely known and accepted seeing as Percy is the freshest kid on the block for the university’s prestigious swim team. If he was thinking about it, Percy himself would tell you that being underwater is a perfectly natural place to be and that you should probably try it sometime, except that Percy is swimming right now and therefore not really thinking about anything else at all.

Practice, however, is coming to an end so after a few more cooldown laps across the pool Percy grabs the wall and heaves himself out of the water, beaching himself like a human-sized, boy-shaped whale. All around him are the sounds of splashing, the slaps of bare feet on the ground, and droplets of water pattering on the rubber-covered floor of the gym as the other members of the team also pull themselves up out of the water. Percy closes his eyes and focuses on slowing his rapid breathing to get his heart to stop beating so damn fast. He has almost succeeded at this when two heavy footsteps   
right next to his head make his eyes snap open. Hovering above him is the grizzled face of Coach Hedge glaring at him.

Percy slaps on the most innocent smile he can muster and asks, “What’s poppin Coach?”

Hedge blows out a huff of air that on a different person might have been a soft laugh but on Hedge resembles more of a bull blowing out air before it charges. “We need to have a talk in my office.” Hedge starts walking away down the side of the pool but before he gets too far away turns and yells over his shoulder, “Now.”

Percy jumps up as fast as his sore post-practice body can do so and begins to follow Hedge over to his office, grabbing his towel on the way to begin to dry off his hair. Now, Hedge as a faculty member does technically get a room somewhere on campus that is his official office, but Percy’s pretty sure that no one living has been in that room since Hedges first day on the job over twenty years ago. Maybe.

Hedges actual “office” is the biggest desk the coach could get his hands on, which has been placed in the corner of the gym slightly out of the splash zone to save any important papers or electronics but still close enough to yell at someone swimming with bad form. Hedge is already sitting behind this behemoth of academic furnishing in a cushioned armchair when Percy catches up to him and plops down in the much tinier metal folding chair reserved for students to sit in. Percy thinks this dichotomy in furniture is a little unnecessary but Hedge is threatening enough that no one has ever called him   
out on it.

Hedge ignores Percy for a second, looking at the laptop in front of him, before sighing and leaning back in his chair. He runs his hand through his thinning hair and says, “Jackson, we need to talk.”  
Percy also casually leans back in his chair, though not far enough to tempt it to collapse. He has no faith in Hedges furniture investments. “Yeah, I think you might have mentioned that on the other side of the gym.”

Now, Percy figures this will either goad Hedge into threatening him with punishments that probably aren’t legal or will just be ignored totally, so he immediately feels slightly concerned when instead Hedge sighs again and rubs the bridge of his nose. If Percy didn’t know any better, he’d say Hedge looked vaguely worried about something, which isn’t something Percy thinks Hedge is allowed to feel. After Hedge doesn’t reply for a second, Percy asks, “Uh, everything okay Coach?”

Hedge stops rubbing his nose and puts both hands flat out on his desk, as if looking for something solid. “Look kid, you aren’t awful at swimming. I know it, the other guys on the team know it, and even the school knows it or else you wouldn’t have your scholarship.” His face twists into a sort of grimace, like he’s eating something sour, and Percy realizes that suddenly he is in fact pretty dang nervous himself.

Hedge glances at his laptop again, then after a moment slams it shut. Looking right at Percy, he reluctantly says, “Look, at the end of the day this place is a school. Someone up the line decided to take a look at the academic records of everyone on the team and I guess they aren’t thrilled at what they found.” Hedge looks up at the ceiling and begins to scratch the back of his head nervously, but continues, “You’re gonna get cut from the team if your grades don’t start going up pronto.”

Percy’s eyes blow open as his heart drops. His brain feels like someone just hard restarted it, overwhelmed yet at the same time can’t really feel anything enough to realize it. He can vaguely feel that his mouth has scrunched up like he’s trying to smile instinctively but can’t quite make it happen. Somehow through his current mental dump he figures he should probably ask for details. He manages to squeeze his brain like a sponge and out comes, “Uh.”

Thankfully, Hedge already knows what he’s probably going to ask. “They didn’t give me a specific deadline or a promise that you will get cut, but if your GPA doesn’t start getting up to a 2.5 in the near future I think you’re gonna have to start using a community pool to get your laps in.”

Percy tries to wrangle his mind into something that can make coherent thoughts and sentences. He feels like he’s trying to wrangle an oiled-up cow with a rope made out of silly string. “Uh.”  
Hedge comes to the rescue once again, sliding him a piece of paper face-down across the desk, which is so large he can barely scoot the paper all the way to the other side without standing up. “I did a little digging and found something that should help. You’re welcome. I expect that you’ll fix this before it becomes a real issue.”

Percy takes the paper but continues to stare blankly at Hedge like he forgot what it means to be a person. Hedge stands up out of his chair, which really only makes him a couple inches taller. “Jackson, you aren’t stupid. You’re an idiot for sure but not like legitimately dumb. You’ll figure it out.” He picks up his laptop and begins to walk towards the exit of the gym, leaving Percy behind in the stupid little metal chair that Percy is really beginning to dislike.

Percy waits a minute to make sure his brain is really still in there before flipping over the paper to see what magic “get smart quick” solution Hedge managed to dig up. A picture of two photogenic students sitting around a desk with an open book greets him, both students laughing as if reading was the funniest possible thing. Percy bitterly hopes they got payed well to make people feel bad about themselves for hating school. On the top of the flier, the words “Academic Tutoring” look back up at him, with smaller script underneath explaining that yes you can have other, smarter students teach you pretty much anything you didn’t manage to pick up on the first try. Percy hates this stupid paper already.

He crumples up the paper in his hand and stands up, stalking back across the gym to the locker room. By the time he gets to his locker and begins to retrieve his things, everyone else is mostly dresses and ready to leave. Percy drops his stupid tutoring advertisement on the ground so he can pull out his clothes and start getting rdressed.

Soon he is mostly dressed, but as he pulls his shirt over his head he hears movement beside him and some light snickering. Percy rolls his eyes as he finishes putting on his shirt, sure that nothing good is about to happen.

In front of him are three of the other guys on the team. Percy squints at them trying to remember their names. It’s not that Percy doesn’t know who is on his team, but he’s bad with names and he doesn’t like these guys anyways so not knowing their names is really just a plus. He is sure that they’re year three students, so they’ve all got a couple years on him.

The guy in the front is holding a wrinkled piece of paper that Percy quickly identifies to be the tutoring ad that he had thrown on the ground a minute ago. Looking at the expressions on the guys’ faces, Percy knows that nothing good will come from this development.

Guy In The Front, as Percy now thinks of him, begins to read the ad in an overly theatrical voice. “Academic Tutoring: Get As Much Help As You Need!” The two dudes behind him, now dubbed Lefty and Righty, begin to snicker evilly. Percy frowns. Didn’t people stop snickering evilly in middle school? Come on now.

However, not one to be outdone Percy replies, “Wow, that was pretty good! Maybe you could have chosen a theater major if people knew you actually had talent at something.”

Lefty and Righty immediately stop snickering and dive straight into glowering so quickly and in sync that it’s kind of impressive. Guy In The Front drops the paper on the ground and takes a step forward, placing himself only a foot away from Percy. Glaring straight at Percy, he asks in a suddenly much more serious voice, “You trying to start something Jackson?” Somehow, he manages to smell like sweaty boy even though they had just been submerged in water for hours.

Percy turns and finishes fishing his things out of his locker and putting them into a backpack. “Nah dude, I’m not trying to get in a fight in the locker room. Don’t wanna have any negative associations with this place, you know? It could mess up my headspace for the rest of the year if something nasty happens in here.”

Now, his voice is dripping with sarcasm at this point, but the three of them don’t seem to quite pick up on it enough to take offense. Guy In The Front backs up a step and says, “Well, that’s what I thought. Have fun with your extra homework, dumbass.” He turns on the spot and walks away as the other two congratulate him on ad libbing such a spectacular roast on the spot. Percy decides that he’ll be referring to the three of them as The Dick Squad from now on. He wishes he had someone to high five for that one. Nuts.

He shoulders his backpack, slams his locker shut, takes two steps, then stops. Looking over his shoulder, the tutoring ad is still on the ground. Frustration fills Percy like a flash flood as he looks up to the ceiling and clenches his jaw. He absolutely does not want to do this, he shouldn’t have to do this, this is bullshit, why should he have to do this at all? He stands this way, fists balled, staring into the ceiling like he can burn a hole in it with sheer force of will. After a full minute of this, Percy mutters, “God damn it,” to himself as he walks back, stoops over, and grabs the flier. If he is a little rougher than necessary while shoving it into his bag, nobody needs to know, right?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

An hour later, Percy is sitting at a table in Pan Cakes, a vegan bakery not far from campus. Sitting across from him is the co-owner of the shop and his best friend, Grover Underwood, who is just tearing into a plate of brownies. Percy himself is morosely trying to make his way through some cookies he ordered, but eating really isn’t on the list of things that are fun to do right now.

When Percy takes maybe the smallest bite any human being has taken out of cookie then just drops it onto his plate, Grover pauses mid-frenzy to look up at him. Apparently what he sees worries him, because Grover stops eating too and hesitantly asks, “Everything alright with you, Perce?”

Percy puts on a convincing grin and replies, “Yeah why? Something up with you?” 

This, it seems, was the wrong choice to make, as Grover frowns and pushes his plate away from him before whipping out his phone. Percy dumbly stares as Grover types something with impressive speed before dropping his phone back onto the table. Percy opens his mouth to ask what was up with that when Grover cuts him off by holding up a finger and indicating for him to wait.

They both stare at each other for about thirty seconds before Juniper, Grover’s girlfriend and the other half of Pan Cakes, walks up and deposits two open Dr Pepper’s onto the table. Percy and Grover thank her and Grover stands up quickly to kiss Juniper on the cheek before settling back down. He takes a swig o’ the juice before placing it back down on the table and saying, “All right, spill the beans.”  
Percy cringes and tries to disguise it as a smile, thinking maybe it’ll work this time. “I uh, don’t know what you’re talking about?” He quickly takes a drink of his own soda, trying to sooth his suddenly dry throat.

Grover just stares him down with an unimpressed look, taking an excruciatingly slow sip of soda while doing so. Percy tries to hold his resolve, he really does, but a man can only do so much when faced with a thirty-second-long slurp of skepticism.

Percy rolls his eyes and sighs, figuring he should have known Grover would see through him. “All right fine. I’m not good at school so even though I’m good at swimming they’re gonna cut me from the team unless I can improve my GPA. Fun times for me!” Percy does little jazz hands at the end to really sell how miserable he is.

Grover’s face pales immediately, but beyond that impressively manages to not look too worried, which is good because Percy doesn’t think he can handle any more worried than he is currently saddled with. “Jeez Percy, that’s kinda rough.” Percy snorts. Yeah, maybe a little. “I mean, you can sign up for tutoring and stuff right? Schools still do that I think?”

Percy sighs and drinks some more comfort Dr Pepper. “Yeah, coach Hedge gave me some flier to sign up for tutoring.” He digs around in his bag to find the flier and manages to extricate it without crumpling it more than it already is before handing it to Grover. “It just sucks though, because I’m already doing school and swim stuff, and now they want me to go back and do even more school because I was bad at the first one!”

He realizes that he’s half shouting now and is starting to rise up out of his seat, so he quickly sits back down. Glancing over his shoulder, he sees Juniper at the counter sending them concerned glances. Percy sends back a thumbs up and a cheery smile that might be a little to manic to be comforting but hopefully gets the job done.

Turning back around, he sees Grover reading through the flier intensely, brows furrowed and chewing on his bottom lip. After a second he raises his eyebrows and tilts his head for a second, like he has something to say but he’s trying to roll the idea around through his head before it can come out of his mouth.

Eventually it does arrive as Grover says, “I mean as far as I can tell its either you do this or you give up on swimming, and you’ve never given up on a thing in your entire life. Like real life frogger, remember that? You absolutely should have given up on that but you didn’t.” Percy smiles as he remembers trying to make it across a busy street during rush hour and the hospital trip that came immediately afterwards. Good times. 

Grover continues, saying “I know you don’t like school and you don’t want more work but I know you can do this if you want to, and I think you do too. Just get in there and make it happen and soon it’ll be normal and you’ll be used to being the smartest jock in the pool.”

Percy frowns across the table at Grover. He hates it when Grover makes sense sometimes. Looking down at the flier, he sees the stupidly happy expressions the models have. He doubts he’ll ever feel like that about going to a tutoring session, but Grover’s encouragement has reminded him of all the work he’s done to even get to this spot right now. Deep down, Percy knows as an absolute fact that if he is forced out of swimming just because he didn’t work hard enough at something, even if that something isn’t swimming but is being a nerd, that he’ll never forgive himself.

Groaning, he takes the paper back and shoves it into his bag again. “Fine, I’ll go to tutoring, but I will be unhappy about it the whole time and it will be your fault.”

Grover smirks and rolls his eyes, replying, “Sure dude, I’ll bring you consolation pastries or something for having to educate yourself.”

Percy pouts and lays on the table facedown, petulantly muttering, “You better.”


	2. Percy Gets Intimidated

Percy wakes up to his phone’s alarm blaring next to his head. Only barely conscious, he manages to swat at it until it silences itself. Releasing a contented sigh, Percy submits to the sweet release of sleep once again, managing to think that ignoring alarms really is the life before he goes under again.

However, he is rudely ripped out of sleep seconds later as another alarm makes his phone go nuts again. Percy groans and actually opens his eyes as he rolls over to silence his phone again with a sinking feeling. He’s pretty sure that today is a Saturday and he only ever sets more than one alarm in a row on days where he actually has to get up and go do things, which ideally is never the case on Saturday.

Peeking at his phone, Percy looks to find the cause of the unjust end to his slumbering. Looking back up at him on the screen are the words REGISTER FOR TUTORING. Percy squints tiredly at this for a second, as if he could change them through sheer force of will. When the letters stubbornly refuse to cooperate, he lets out an long, anguished groan, punctuated at the end with a vehement, “Shit.”

Percy hears a chuckle from down below him. Peering over the side of his top bunk, Percy can see his other three roommates already all awake and out of bed. Jason is standing on the other side of the room getting dressed in front of a mirror and Leo is doing something with Switch controllers that requires both his hands and his feet. Directly beneath him, Frank is at the desk right next to his own looking up at him with a smile. Percy decides to start glaring at Frank instead of his phone.

Frank remains solidly unintimidated and goes back to the book he has open with a smirk, while Percy considers why no one takes him seriously anymore as he climbs down out of his bed. Maybe he should take acting classes or something. Would that help? Percy feels like it probably wouldn’t help.

Shucking himself out of his sleep clothes like a human-sized ear of corn, Percy starts pulling clothes off of the ground from a couple days ago. Waking up to be productive is one thing, but actually putting effort into pretty much anything else is really just a line Percy is not feeling like crossing today.

As he starts pulling on some socks, Jason looks over from his side of the room. Raising an eyebrow, he asks, “Two alarms huh? Got somewhere to be this lazy Saturday morning?”

Percy scoffs as he reaches for his shoes. “Yeah, Coach Hedge has me running his errands now.” He waves his hand dismissively as he pulls on a shoe with one hand, saying, “You know how it is.” Jason, a fellow school athlete, nods sympathetically. Percy notices Leo is also nodding sagely, despite never having played a sport in his life.

Standing up, Percy notices that Jason is also dressed to go out, and not in a dingy college student on the weekend kind of way either. Raising an eyebrow, he asks, “The real question is where are you off to Mister Dress To Impress?”

Jason’s mouth twitches around the small scar on his lip as he hesitates for a second, and as he opens his mouth to presumably defend himself Leo cuts in without looking away from his project as he blurts out, “Jason’s got a hot date and he won’t tell us who it is.”

Frank leans back in his chair with his book and adds, “We think it’s that girl he met in the psychology class he took last semester though because of how defensive he gets when we mention her.”

Percy looks back at Jason who is definitely a couple shades more red than he was a minute ago. His mouth opens and closes, then opens and closes again as he tries to compose himself. Percy waits for his reply with a growing smirk as he begins to realize that there are fewer differences between Jason and an easily embarrassed goldfish than he originally thought.

Finally, after a full ten seconds of increasingly awkward silence, Jason claps his hands together as if to center himself. He inhales deeply through his nose, then evenly states, “Okay, first of all you guys don’t even know if I’m going on a date or not.” Frank and Leo both turn to look at Percy with an impressive amount of skepticism.

Jason continues nonplussed, “Plus, even if I was going to hang out with someone I think it would be bad to assume that it’s a date because that has certain contexts and assumptions to go with it.” While talking, Jason has opened the door behind him and has begun to back out of the room. “Whether or not I want it to be a date has nothing to do with anything because what matters is that everyone has a good and safe time--” The door shuts completely, cutting whatever Jason was saying off. However, the three remaining boys can hear Jason’s rapid footsteps as he moves away from their dorm at a speed that is much quicker than a casual walk.

Percy, Frank, and Leo are all briefly share an eye roll so powerful they all become a little bit closer as friends. Frank recovers from their shared exasperation first, sitting up straighter in his desk and determinedly digging in to his book. Leo also starts to focus in as he leans back in his chair so he can rest his feet on his desk on top of a controller in front of his monitor.  
Percy frowns and hesitantly begins to ask, “So do I want to know what’s happening over here or-”

Leo cuts him off without stopping his work, saying “I wanted to have a Smash competition but Frank sucks at the game so I started thinking about how I wished I could play myself because I’m the best in the room and that got me thinking about if I could actually play myself so now I’m trying to train my toes to play Smash but that’s running into problems because--”

At this point Percy activates his ‘tune-out-Leo’ filter and turns to Frank with a raised eyebrow. Frank is now pouting as he reads, and he mutters, “I didn’t think I was that bad.”  
Percy huffs out a laugh, then bends to pick up his bag. Slinging it over his shoulder, he walks out of the room, tossing a, “Catch you guys later” over his shoulder as he steps out of the dorm.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It takes Percy about five minutes to remember why he’s walking across campus, but once he remembers it takes him zero minutes to start getting angry about it again. Doesn’t he already do enough for this school between the normal class schedules, the workouts, and the competitions? Now he’s going to school on Saturday too?

This realization makes Percy physically stop in his tracks. He is temporarily struck with such a strong sense of righteous fury that he is being forced into Saturday school that he feels angrier than he has ever been and calmer than he thought he could ever be simultaneously. His next thought is that he has stopped in the middle of the walkway and probably looks like he’s about to rupture a blood vessel. He decides he should probably keep going.

It takes Percy another ten minutes to arrive at his destination, during which he spends most of his time trying to chill out and act like an actual person again. This only partially works as his headspace splits into a debate between being just so pissed or trying to just relax and get it over with. By the time Percy walks through the door with the ‘Tutoring’ sign on it, he has landed somewhere around mildly sullen. Percy feels like this is a fair compromise.

Inside Percy finds a waiting room, complete with depressing chairs, a depressing desk, and a depressingly friendly looking man behind the counter who is currently reading something on their phone. At no point does Percy pause to question his objectivity on the matter.

Walking up to the counter, Percy puts on his best ‘time to charm a stranger’ smile and asks, “Hi, is this where I come to get tutored?”

The friend-shaped man across the counter blinks and looks up with a smile. He responds in a professional yet enthusiastic tone, “Yep, you’ve found the place! Do you have an appointment with one of our student tutors?”

Percy feels himself lose a couple years off of his life as his charming smile falls into what could be called a frightened grimace. Of course people were supposed to get tutoring appointments. Great.  
Percy coughs awkwardly and scratches the back of his head. “Would it be bad, uh, if I maybe didn’t have an appointment with someone?”

The friendly counter man’s smile turns into something more authentic. “Yeah, we have people come in all the time looking for some last minute tutoring.” He looks over to his computer and starts scrolling down a page as he tells Percy, “I’ll just set you up with one of the tutors we have free right now.”

He pulls out a pen and a piece of paper and writes down a room number before handing it to Percy. “Alright, just go to this room, the tutor should be there in a minute or two.”

Percy take the paper and replies, “Sweet, thanks uh… ” He conspicuously looks down at the guy’s name tag. “Graham.” He smiles extra sweet just in case, but Graham is already looking back down at his phone again. Cool.

Percy makes his way back into the hallway and starts looking for the room he’s been assigned. Once he finds it, he peeks his head in through the door to find an empty class with a blackboard on one of the walls, complete with one teacher-sized desks and several student desks to go with it. Percy yawns and walks into the room, looking at the rows of chairs to choose a seat before he pauses. He doesn’t want to sit in the front because he objectively isn’t a nerd, but would it be weird to sit in the back if he’s the only one? Should he pick the neutral middle ground? Could he wait for the tutor to tell him where he should sit?

After an embarrassingly long amount of time he decides to sit in the front row, figuring if he’s going to extra tutoring he might as well commit. Once he sits, Percy starts thinking about the fact that someone he doesn’t know is about to come in and educate him personally. Shifting in his seat, he realizes that he’s actually kinda nervous about this whole situation. He’s never been good at traditional school in general, and now there isn’t going to be anything to distract from how bad he specifically is.

Percy decides he’s just not going to worry about it to try to prevent himself from completely freaking his bean. His tutor is probably gonna be some weird nerd anyways. Who even signs up to spend their free time playing teacher? Percy doesn’t, and he smiles to himself for totally owning whoever is about to walk through those doors.

Except no one walks through the doors immediately, or even in the next minute Percy spends staring at the door in anticipation. Huffing in irritation, Percy drops his head onto his arms, remembering the soft embrace of his bed. Boy does he wish he was still in bed. Sighing deeply, he thinks to himself that some people are just chosen to suffer. His last thought is that he thinks he might be the wisest person he knows.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The first sign Percy has that he has fallen asleep is when a loud slam immediately cures him of being asleep. Jerking up in his seat, Percy’s hands come up to defend himself as he looks frantically around the room. This is when he is clued in to the fact that he is no longer alone in the room.

The professor-sized desk in front of him suddenly has a large pile of textbooks on it which hadn’t been there when Percy arrived. However, most of his attention is focused on the person leaning against the front of the desk and staring directly at him.

Percy has three thoughts rapid fire as he looks at this freshly arrived person. The first one to hit his brain is Princess Hair as he takes in the curly, blonde hair falling down her shoulders in waves. Thought number two: her face is strong, stern, and already solidly unimpressed as he sees her eye him with a raised eyebrow and a slight downturn of the mouth. Great. Finally, Percy realizes that just looking at her evokes what he is pretty sure is a deep kind of fear, which he really can’t explain considering all she’s done is look at him like an extremely unimpressed professor might.

Before Percy can actually pull himself together to react or say anything, this new girl points at his desk and says, “You know, you drool when you sleep.”

Percy feels his cheeks heat up as he quickly glances down at his desk which does in fact have a tiny drool puddle on it. He looks back up at her, who is staring at his face like it has something on it. Percy subtly wipes his desk with one hand while trying to clean off his mouth with the other and pass it off as casually scratching his jaw like a normal person might do. Judging by how the girl’s brow arches a fraction higher tells him that he absolutely was not successful.

Percy shifts in his seat and scratches his head. He should probably change the subject before whoever this is thinks he is a college-student-sized toddler who snuck into her classroom. Glancing at the pile of books, he vaguely waves towards them and says, “So I’m assuming you’re the tutor they paired up with me, right?”

Percy looks back up at her just in time to catch her face shift from skeptical to something more professional as she glances at the books he motioned at. This makes Percy frown for a second, but he clears his expression as she looks back up and responds mechanically, “Yep, I’m Annabeth Chase and I’ll be your tutor for today.” Her eyes flick down to where the Percy Puddle was a minute ago, and as she looks back up she asks, “You’re Percy Jackson, right?”

Absolutely determined not to blush anymore than he has already, Percy smiles dazzlingly and responds, “Guilty as charged. This is basically gonna be like School For Dummies, right?” He is definitely hoping for a laugh to ease the tension, but is disappointed when this fails to even get Annabeth to smile. He is also determined to ignore that hearing her speak undeniably increased the weird fear he has of this girl, which doesn’t even make sense. If he starts pouting over these developments, no one can make him admit it.

Annabeth pulls out her phone and starts reading something as she replies, “I mean, you’re not completely wrong. This is ideally supposed to be a place where we help you work through whatever subjects you’re having issues with, while also working on why you have issues in the first place so you can learn studying habits that work for you and create positive and permanent change in your academic life.” Percy is trying so hard to not fall asleep again as he listens but god damn if that wasn’t straight out of a school pamphlet. Even if he is wildly intimidated right now for some reason, sometimes boredom-induced sleep finds a way.

Closing her phone, Annabeth looks back at Percy as he sees the return of the raised eyebrow. “However, looking through your file it seems like you need help in pretty much every subject so I thought I’d leave it up to you where we start.”

Percy’s returning sleepiness evaporates slowly as he realizes he has definitely been insulted, though in an exceptionally professional way. His eyes narrow as his determination to remain positive begins to drain out into the floor. Percy replies in a sarcastic tone, “I don’t know, you seem like you’ve got it all figured out so why don’t you start us off with something?” He raises his own eyebrow in challenge to Annabeth’s. Two people can play at angry eyebrows.

Annabeth’s eyes narrow and she seems to have something on the tip of her tongue. Percy is probably more excited than he should be to see her break her professor persona, but instead is let down again as she blinks and without breaking eye contact reaches out and grabs a biology textbook. “You’re a marine bio student with a swim scholarship right?” Her voice has suddenly become frosty, taking on the tone of an interrogator. Percy’s fear of this girl rises even higher as he just nods at the book which Annabeth is now pointing at him like a weapon.

She tosses the book at him and he definitely does not squeak as he frantically catches it before it beans him in the dome. She reaches over and pulls an identical textbook out of the stack. Flipping through it, she says, “Let’s start with something you should be interested in then.” She tells him which page to open up to, and once he gets there he sees pictures of dolphin fin bone structures and a caption head about the evolutionary patterns of marine life. 

Percy swallows as he takes in the large swathes of text in front of him the same way another person might look at a guillotine. Percy considers texting his mother a final goodbye before Annabeth starts reading out loud, forcing him to dive in.

As expected, the text immediately starts swimming around in his vision, making reading even small paragraphs a challenge. However, as he struggles to read the pages in front of him Annabeth doesn’t start threatening to attack him with a yardstick like he expects. In fact, there are often times when she has to have his help to read a word, causing Percy to realize that he might not be the only one in the room with dyslexia.

Once he realizes this, he finds it easier to stop imagining Annabeth hovering over him with a gun to his head and to see that she actually could be helpful instead of just intimidating. As time passes the two of them form into a tag team for reading, with both offering suggestions for more complicated words and each providing the answers to the other when they fumble. Percy points out how cute every animal pictured in the book is, and Annabeth makes comments on how the different skeletal structures are related when Percy is having difficulty seeing it. She also helps refocus Percy after he gets stuck on the idea of otters using their tiny little fingers to hold hands or grab seaweed and turn it into fun little wigs, which apparently never happens no matter how much Percy loves the idea.

It never even occurs to Percy to be embarrassed about his dyslexia or the fact that he’s reading a school book out loud like he used to back in middle school. He’s too busy pointing out how cute every animal is and a In fact, Percy realizes this is the most comfortable he’s been doing schoolwork in a very long time, verging on ever.

Before Percy even knows it, they’ve made their way through the entire chapter. Annabeth has just asked Percy one of the questions at the back of the chapter to see how his comprehension was, but before he can answer it, an alarm on Annabeth’s phone goes off. She quickly lunges across the desk to silence it, then flips back through the book to see how many pages they covered. Her eyebrows raise as she makes an impressed sound, before she says, “Wow, we made more progress than I thought we would. Not bad, Jackson.”

Percy tilts his head to try to figure out if the complement outweighs the insult in that sentence. He’s pretty sure it does. Leaning back in his chair, he feels a grin that could be described as insufferable begin to grow on its own as he responds, “Yeah that wasn’t horrible, but you’re way smarter than me, clearly. I’m really gonna have to Chase after you, huh?” He wiggles his eyebrows to add to the effect.  
Percy really isn’t expecting a reaction by this point, so when Annabeth scoffs and rolls her eyes, he nearly falls out of his seat. She looks at him with an annoyed glance and replies, “Well obviously I’m smarter or else I wouldn’t be your tutor, would I?”

Percy, however, is distracted by the upward curl of Annabeth’s lips that she can’t quite completely suppress. He finds himself with a matching grin and no idea how it got therer, but after a second frowns in confusion. “Wait, I thought you were just my tutor for today because I didn’t make an appointment.”

Annabeth looks up and bites her lip while tilting her head as if deep in thought. She stays this way for a solid five seconds, and right as Percy decides he is gonna try to poke her to see if she’d notice she suddenly snaps out of it and grabs a piece of paper. Percy quickly lowers his hand from his aborted attempt and is glad she’s too preoccupied writing something to notice. He has a sudden epiphany as he realizes that he’s actually stealthy as hell and that he should try this out more often. It definitely will work out for sure.

Once she finishes writing on the paper, she hands it to Percy and starts collecting her books. Opening the paper, he sees an email address written inside. Looking up, Annabeth has already packed and has made her way to the door.

Percy quickly stands up and asks, “Wait, what am I supposed to do with this?”

She sighs exasperatedly and replies, “What do you think, seaweed brain? Email me your schedule so we can set up a tutoring schedule?”

Percy frowns in confusion at the nickname before remembering adorable pictures of otters in tiny seaweed bonnets. Ah, innocence. This mental image is swept away by Percy suddenly registering that Annabeth is offering to meet with him again to keep tutoring him. He simultaneously feels way more excited than he thinks he should be and like his stomach just fell three stories. He manages to squeak out a strangled, “Oh. Right.”

Annabeth pauses halfway out the door and turns to look at Percy. As he meets her gaze, their eyes lock in a way different than anything during the entire tutoring session. Percy realizes he’s never quite seen the color gray like he’s seeing looking back at him right now. Annabeth seems to have frozen too as the two regard each other in this split second, nothing happening except two pairs of eyes meeting

Gray and green.

They both blink, and whatever just happened is over as quickly as it began. Percy opens his mouth to say something dumb probably, but Annabeth cuts him off, saying, “See you around, Percy.” She has that slight smile again as she moves out of the room and Percy feels like he can’t move.

The door shuts behind her, and Percy is left alone with the swooping sense of fear that has built up throughout the session. Percy frowns as he suddenly realizes that fear generally doesn’t feel like swooping. Why is it swooping?

Suddenly, the image of Annabeth trying to force down a smile as she rolls her eyes jumps unbidden into his mind. Percy feels something shift in his chest and click in his brain and his eyes widen. This feeling definitely isn’t fear. 

“Oh shit.”

Percy stumbles out of the room with his bag like he just ran a marathon, barely able to find the door as all he can see is Annabeth’s stupid pretty smile and her dumb curly hair and suddenly Percy is running into someone in the hallway.

Stumbling back a step, the image of Annabeth pops in his head as he sees Grover in front of him with a slightly crumpled box of donuts and a worried expression. Looking Percy over, Grover frowns and asks, “Why do you look like you got mugged but you’re happy about it?”

Percy groans and opens the box, grabbing the first donut he sees. With his other hand, he grabs Grover’s shoulder and looks him straight in the eyes and says, “Grover I need you to kill me.”

Percy sees Grover’s mind racing for two solid seconds before something gleams in his eyes and a malicious grin appears on his friend’s face. He puts his arm around Percy’s shoulder and starts leading him out of the building, saying, “Perce I respect your privacy and all but you are absolutely going to tell me who you just met in that class.”

Percy groans and stuffs the donut into his mouth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, this one is slightly later than I wanted but I just spent the last two days looking at houses to rent. Love being a poor college student. Anyways as you can probably guess Percy’s really getting in it immediately in this one. I’m personally excited to really make this boy do some pining. Also writing this was fun because I definitely know almost nothing about any of the science or math majors now so I’m really just kinda winging it. Anyways, as always hope you guys enjoy this chapter and I’ll see you all next week with chapter three!


	3. Percy Learns To Read

Percy plops himself down on a bench at the side of the university’s track with a sigh, causing a small cloud to escape into the cold January air. Looking at his phone, Percy sees that it is only 7:30 in the morning. Huffing again, he questions not for the first time why he agreed to be Jason’s running partner if it meant freezing to death at an ungodly hour. Honestly, would freezing to death three hours later have been so bad?

As he decides to just settle in and mope dramatically until Jason shows up, Percy is distracted by his phone vibrating in his hand. Looking down, he sees a notification for a new email pop up. He swipes to unlock his phone, thankful for a distraction from tragically wasting away.

His inbox is currently full of hundreds of unread emails, from both scholarship foundations and his professors reminding him about homework assignments. He and Leo have a running competition to see who can have the largest notification number on their email app, and Percy has been winning for the past two weeks. However, on the top of his inbox is an email with the words “Tutoring Schedule.” Tilting his head to the side curiously, he opens the email.

Percy,  
Just checking in to see if you wanted to continue our tutoring sessions. If so, please respond with your schedule as soon as it is convenient.  
Regards,  
Annabeth Chase

Percy squints down at his phone, staring at the end of the message. It had been four days since he had gone to the tutoring session, and he had completely forgotten that Annabeth had given him her email address. To be fair, he rationalizes, who even gives out their email address like that? Percy decides he absolutely would not have forgotten if Annabeth had given him her number like a normal college-aged student.

Percy taps the option to respond but freezes with his thumbs over his phone. While he had managed to forget Annabeth’s email address pretty much immediately, he had unfortunately not been able to forget Annabeth. In fact, he had been thinking about her pretty much every day and it was starting to get pretty annoying. Paying attention in class was hard enough without a pair of gray eyes haunting him in his brain.

The worst part was that Percy didn’t even know why he was so hung up on this. Sure, he had probably thought she was kinda pretty or something, but he was pretty sure that he had managed to overreact somehow. Percy was pretty sure you could overreact to meeting an attractive stranger. She probably wasn’t even that attractive now that he thinks about it, it just was he was still sleepy because it was a Saturday morning. Percy nods to himself, deciding this to be a logical conclusion.

Unfortunately, Percy’s body apparently doesn’t agree with him as not only do his thoughts of Annabeth disappear, but the weird anxious energy that he is starting to really hate has come back in full force. Shrugging as if he can shake off these dumb feelings, Percy types out a response.

oh hey sorry i didnt email you earlier. is the offer from earlier still open

Percy rereads the message once and nods to himself. That seems casual but respectable, right? He pauses, then rereads the message again, deciding to add a question mark to the end. Punctuation can be important in making impressions. Percy bites his lip and hits send, decidedly not thinking about why he’s paying so much attention to punctuation in an email.

Percy goes to pocket his phone as he looks around to see if Jason has finally decided to grace him with his presence (Percy snorts and hi-fives himself) when his phone vibrates again in his hand. Eyebrows raised, Percy looks at his phone again to see that the reply has already arrived.

Percy,  
As you can see, I’m available to meet depending on the days you’re free.  
Regards,  
Annabeth Chase

Percy purses his lips and frowns. He’s pretty sure that this is passive aggressive, but the email is so professional he can’t quite tell. Plus, who formats more than one email in a row? Percy can’t imagine putting in the effort to sign one email, let alone multiple messages. Rolling his eyes, he types out another message

im free this afternoon after 1 if thats good with you  
Regards,  
Percy Jackson

Hitting send, Percy leans back on the bench again with a smirk starting to form. He really hopes Annabeth notices that he was making fun of her because he was 100% making fun of her. Not even thirty seconds later his phone buzzes again and Percy quickly looks to see if his joke landed.

Percy,  
That time works for me as well. I will see you then.  
Regards,  
Annabeth Chase

Percy’s smile falls off at terminal velocity as he groans and drops his head onto the back of the bench. It’s like she isn’t even a person, just a wall of professionalism that spits out emails at students.

While still debating giving up on getting Annabeth to react to anything like a person, Percy is shocked into sitting upright by another email. Hastily opening it, he finds a second message from Annabeth underneath the first.

Also, if you learn this fast at everything maybe you won’t be as hopeless as I thought.  
Regards,  
Annabeth Chase

This time, Percy is absolutely positive he is being insulted, and for some reason he can’t stop smiling. The weird, swooping feeling in his chest is back and even though he’s sitting on a frozen bench, it feels sort of like he’s falling.

“Oof, that’s kinda rough dude.”

Percy jumps completely off the bench and spins to find Jason standing behind the bench with a knowing smile. Percy rolls his eyes and casually scratches the back of his head to try to play off his over-the-top reaction and says, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Jason raises an eyebrow. “I don’t know man, you seem pretty stoked for a guy who just got toasted by a school tutor.”

Percy squints at him suspiciously as Jason’s smile continues to grow. After a second he gasps and his eyes widen. He points at Jason suspiciously and says, “You’ve been talking to Grover.”

Jason shrugs and hefts his backpack on his shoulders before casually responding, “Well, more like Grover ran up on me and started shouting that you met someone.”

Feeling his face shrink into a horrified grimace, Percy decides denial is definitely the way to go. “Would you believe me if I told you he was lying?” His voice raises to a much higher pitch than usual, which probably doesn’t help him out any.

Jason huffs out a laugh and pats Percy’s shoulder as he walks past him towards the track and says, “Not a chance.”

Percy makes a disgusted sound and follows after him. Thankfully, nothing more is said about it as they drop off their bags next to the track and start off at a solid pace. However, after the first couple minutes of running in silence except for the pounding of feet on rubber, he hears Jason say between breaths, “So do I get to know who this mystery tutor is?”

Percy rolls his eyes. Jason is usually a stickler for proper technique while running, which generally doesn’t include grilling your friends about their feelings. Instead of answering, he shoots back, “I could ask the same about you and that girl you went on a date with.”

Jason’s face starts to redden immediately, Percy notices with grim satisfaction. If he’s going down, he’s taking as many people as possible with him. 

After a second Jason clears his throat and and says in a significantly less smug tone, “It wasn’t a date, I don’t know why you guys think that.”

Rolling his eyes, Percy replies, “Yeah okay and I don’t have an annoying crush on my new tutor.” It takes a full second after he finishes the sentence for him to realize what he actually just said, and he immediately trips and barely manages to avoid eating it completely.

Percy looks back over to Jason with wide eyes and warm cheeks and sees his expression mirrored almost exactly, except for the shocked smile beginning to curl at the edges of Jason’s mouth. Percy opens his mouth to defend himself, then thinks better of it and shuts it with a click as he looks stubbornly forwards.

They run in silence for another minute before Percy hears Jason make a louder exhale than usual, and then after a second, “Okay so it might have been a date. Possibly.”

Huffing out a laugh, Percy looks over again and asks with a smile, “Dude, how do you not know if it was a date or not?”

Jason’s eyebrows raise along with his voice as he replies, “I don’t know it was kinda vague? Like she’s pretty and smart and cool and she asked me to go hang out with her but if no one says the word date is it a date?” Somehow, he has started to motion with his hands while running, which Percy finds hilarious.

Percy smirks, happy to be focusing on something that isn’t him. “That sounds like it hits all of the main points of a date to me. Just think about it, you’re crazy for her and she asks you to hang out with her alone, it's getting saucier by the minute.”

Jason sputters out something out something incoherent as his face hits the classic Lightning McQueen red as Percy laughs at him unabashed. He is a big fan of how great it feels to laugh at someone else’s feelings instead of his.

After he regains the ability to speak and make eye contact with Percy again, Jason mutters reluctantly, “Both of us are pretty obvious about this, huh.”

Percy’s eyebrows raise defensively as he replies, “I have no idea what you’re on my dude but I’m not obvious about anything. The Jackson brand is that of an enigma.”

Jason fixes him with an unimpressed stare, which is impressive to do while running. “You literally said with your own mouth that you like your tutor.”

Percy’s face scrunches up again as he remembers he did definitely do that. At this rate his youthful face is going to look like an overused sponge in a week. In a voice that sounds more like a dying old man than usual, he says, “I think technically I said I didn’t have a crush on her?”

One of Jason’s eyebrows arches upwards into a flawless People’s Eyebrow. Percy thinks Dwayne Johnson would have been proud before rolling his eyes and relenting. “Fine okay sure maybe I have unfortunately contracted, uh, that, but probably not because I’ve only met her once and how is that even possible?”

Jason’s face melts into an empathetic smile as he pats Percy’s shoulder. Looking forward, he wisely states, “We’re both idiots, I think.”

Reluctantly agreeing, Percy decides to speed up the pace to distract from more embarrassing conversations. Jason apparently had the same idea as their run turns into a race around the track, all conversation forgotten in place of burning muscles and the flash of competitive spirit.

Percy totally wins if anyone was to ask.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Annabeth is already at the front of the class with her materials out when Percy walks into the classroom that afternoon. He may or may not be running slightly late, but he figures it isn’t that big of a deal to be perfectly punctual to a tutoring session. After all, he has a reputation to uphold.

Sitting in the front desk again, he looks up to see Annabeth writing something on the whiteboard. She continues to do this, with no sign of acknowledging Percy, for so long that he starts to wonder if she even knows that he’s in the room.

However, before he can come up with something probably pretty dumb to say to let her know that he has arrived, she caps her marker and turns around with her arms crossed. Percy immediately feels like his heart just took a swing at the inside of his ribcage with a baseball bat, despite the way that Annabeth already looks like she wants to slap him with a textbook. Percy frowns a little as he hears the sound of all of his Not That Attracted To My Tutor theories shattering in the background. Damn it.

“You’re late.” Percy blinks, almost missing that Annabeth said something, before looking at a clock on the wall. He is, in fact, almost ten minutes late. Oops.

Wincing, he looks back at Annabeth and sheepishly replies, “Better late than never, right?” Her expression morphs from unimpressed to irritated at an impressive speed, and Percy feels his nervous grin die on the spot. Maybe not the best start, he thinks.

Instead of replying, Annabeth moves to the side of the board and points up to where she has written “Writing 101” in large, neat lettering. Percy rolls his eyes. Of course she has good handwriting.

Either not noticing his eye roll or just ignoring it, Annabeth explains, “I looked through your transcripts for this year and I saw that this is the subject you’re doing the worst in, so I thought we should start working on this first.’

Percy feels a lopsided grin start to grow as he asks, “Oh, looking me up now are you? Did you find anything exciting?”

Annabeth doesn’t react beyond a split second glare before she bends to pick up some notebooks and matching textbooks off of the desk next to her. Percy’s smile falls as he remembers he is actually going to have to do legitimate schoolwork.

As she passes him one of the notebooks, Annabeth asks without looking at him, “So to start, what do you want to work on the most for this subject?” She leans back on the desk with a cracked open textbook as she waits for Percy’s reply.

Percy frowns, and after a second shrugs and replies, “I don’t really know, a lot of the time I’m either asleep in that class or wish I was.”

This, apparently, is a bad answer as Annabeth scoffs and rolls her eyes. “Well, obviously you’re going to do as badly as you are if you’re not even trying.”

Percy’s brow furrows as he feels anger start to pool up in him. Indignantly, he asks, “Who said I wasn’t trying?”

Raising one eyebrow skeptically, Annabeth lowers her notebook. “I mean, what, you’re failing half of your classes and barely passing the other half but when you come to tutoring to get help with that you don’t even show up on time. Really it seems pretty clear to me.”

Clenching his hands into fists, Percy exhales sharply through his nose before retorting, “Yeah well maybe not all of us can be good at school without even trying.” He slouches petulantly into his seat and adds on, “Sorry I’m not as naturally gifted as you apparently are.”

Annabeth rolls her eyes again and looks up to the ceiling. After a second, she lets out a long sigh and moves from the teacher’s desk in the front of the room to the desk next to Percy, turning it to face him before sitting in it. Pursing her lips, she lays out the books on her desk before asking, “Do you have more trouble with the writing part of the class or with analyzing the reading?”

Percy sullenly refuses to turn all the way to face her completely, but mutters in response, “The reading is worse. It’s hard to pull of a critical analysis when you have dyslexia and the words like to go on paid vacation.”

Annabeth huffs out a short laugh, almost like it was startled out of her, before saying, “Tell me about it. Dyslexia should really be illegal by now.”

Percy is so shocked he forgets that he’s supposed to be angry right now. He’s sure this is the first time Annabeth has laughed in front of him, even just a little bit, and he finds himself filled with a desire to make her do it again.

Suddenly becoming conscious of what he’s thinking, Percy grimaces to himself. He is absolutely sure at this moment that being able to feel emotion is the least convenient thing that has ever happened to him. How is he supposed to develop a grudge like this?

Realizing that if he spends to long self-reflecting Annabeth will notice, he quickly throws out, “Maybe if I asked the professor to just bean me in the head with the book the words would transfer better.”

Annabeth snorts and shoots back in a dry tone, “I can do that right now and save you the trouble if you want.”

Percy can’t help the giant grin that has appeared on his face. Is this banter? Percy’s pretty sure that he’s bantering with Annabeth right now. His heart feels like its using his stomach as a jump rope and he feels weirdly giddy. Wasn’t he pissed off like two minutes ago? He can’t remember anymore.

Annabeth, now with a smirk of her own curling her lips, plops a textbook onto Percy’s desk with a loud thud. His grin falters as he hesitantly cracks open the book before looking at Annabeth fearfully.  
Her smirk becomes something more malicious as she opens her own copy and proclaims, “Now I’m going to teach you how to read. I think you might be able to get the hang of it.”

Percy is pretty sure that he shouldn’t smiling this much about being called illiterate, but his body apparently stopped listening to him a while ago. Shrugging in defeat, Percy figures that it could have been worse, like if he got Leo as a tutor.

He shudders at the thought, but is soon distracted by words that are too large and sentences that run on for too long. Percy misses not being able to read.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can you guys tell that I've never actually been to a tutoring session? Hopefully not! Anyways I hope you guys enjoy me projecting how many unread emails I have onto Percy because my number is in the thousands. Maybe he'll deal with that better than I do.


	4. Percy Tries Out Group Studying

“This makes no sense.”

“Yes it does, just think it through.”

“I am thinking it through and what I’m getting is this makes no sense at all.”

Annabeth sighs and leans back in her chair. “I don’t know what to tell you Percy, that’s just how it works.”

Percy continues to glare down at the chemistry book that has been making its way up his list of ‘Books to Burn’ over the past hour. The only other book on this list Beowulf, mainly because Percy lost his copy from high school before he could get to burn it.

The chemistry book, however, is still very much present and is innocently displaying a chart of two molecules sharing electrons. Percy hates this stupid little graph. “I still don’t get how they can share electrons if they both need them all the time.”

Annabeth sits up again points at the graph to explain it for probably the fourth time, but Percy’s beginning to lose track. “Look, the electron is so fast that it can basically be in two places at once so both molecules get to use it. If they weren’t so fast then it wouldn’t work.”

Percy moves his glare up from the book to Annabeth. “So what you’re telling me is that the molecules are cheating.”

Annabeth’s brow furrows and her head cocks to the side as one side of her mouth curls up amusedly. After a second she replies, “Yeah, I guess that’s a good way of thinking about it.”

Percy leans back from the desk and throws his hands up in the air exasperatedly. “That’s not even fair! You’re telling me that the world gets to cheat at existing? I don’t even get to cheat in this stupid class!” Finishing his mini-tirade with a huff, Percy decides a solid pouting to be in order because this is definitely some bullshit.

Annabeth’s half smile grows into a fully fledged smirk as she closes the textbook. She pulls out her bag and starts to stow the book in it, saying, “Well lucky for you that our session is over. Any longer and I think you might have popped a blood vessel.”

Percy grunts and mutters, “Thanks, I like to keep those unpopped when I can,” before he goes to pick up his own bag.

As he begins to stand, he sees Annabeth stiffen before quickly blurting out, “Wait, before you go I have to ask you something.”

Percy freezes, then slowly lowers back down into his chair as his brow rises. “Yeah, what’s up?”

Annabeth looks away for a second and sighs. As he waits for an answer, Percy notices that a single lock of hair has escaped from the ponytail Annabeth is currently rocking and is now dangling in front of her nose. This is much more distracting than Percy thinks it has any right to be.

Percy’s so fixated on this that he almost misses it when Annabeth shifts in her chair and begins talking again. “The debate team I’m on is gearing up for our next big competition and we’re all really digging in to study up on the subject.”

She shifts again, and Percy notices that she suddenly looks vaguely uncomfortable. “This time the debate is over if tech suits should be allowed in swim meets and I thought that I would maybe ask if you could let me come to some of your practices?”

Her brow has furrowed and the strand of hair is still dangling in front of her nose as she looks up to lock eyes with Percy. His brain fizzles out and heat threatens to flood his cheeks as he struggles to maintain eye contact. He knows that logically he should probably answer the question, but currently he can barely remember his own name. He feels the now-familiar spike of emotion and resists the urge to rub his chest. He’s pretty sure that you can’t be hospitalized from having an embarrassing crush, but he also might have to look it up later just to be sure.

He must have spent too long internally imploding because Annabeth is suddenly waving her hand directly in front of his face. “Hello, earth to Percy?” Her expression is still a little hesitant, but she has also sprouted a small, confused grin.

Percy squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head to try to shake all of the emotion out before it overwhelms him. Unfortunately, this doesn’t help at all. Sighing, Percy opens his eyes again and tries to will down the blush he has for sure developed at this point before responding, “Oh, sorry, uh. What was the question again?”

Annabeth is definitely smirking at this point as she rolls her eyes, which actively counteracting Percy’s attempts to remain calm. “Can I come to one of your practices to do some research? You know, the thing most non-athlete students do occasionally?”

Percy raises a brow points and responds by holding up a rebuking finger. “I’ll have you know my mom told me herself that I was very smart for an athlete. Also, how does coming to practice help you do research on tech suits?”

Breaking eye contact, Annabeth leans back and shrugs. “I mean if it helps at all it’ll be worth going, right?” As she talks, she brushes the lock of hair behind one ear. Percy feels weirdly disappointed about this development but decides not to dwell on it for the sake of his mental health. “I’m just trying to get the maximum advantage I can get before the debate.”

Percy snorts, rolling his eyes. “You make debate club sound tactical.” Deciding to take this opportunity to escape before he embarrasses himself again, he stands as he continues, “Yeah alright I’ll send you the practice schedule so you can come and do all sorts of on-site research.”

Annabeth stands up as well, slinging her own bag over her shoulder. “Thanks Percy, this really does help me out a lot.” She looks up at him, now beaming a fully fledged smile. Percy immediately loses the war with his blush as he feels his face catch on fire and his knees weaken. Hopefully he can convince Annabeth that he is deathly ill when he inevitably collapses from exposure to her blinding smile. That really shouldn’t be legal.

Though his brain has taken a permanent vacation apparently, Percy’s pretty sure he mumbles out a, “Yeah no problem sure.” He continues to just sort of stand there as Annabeth moves past him and towards the door. As he hears the door open, he has an objectively awful idea. Unfortunately for him, however, his mouth opens before he can stop it, blurting out as he turns, “Oh also can you give me your number?”

Annabeth freezes halfway out the door. Percy is struck with an overwhelming urge to cease existing. After a second, she slowly turns to face him, a suspicious expression now firmly in place. Belatedly, he realizes that it must be impossible to die from mortification because if it was he would have hit the floor already. Deciding that he should probably not look like this is the worst decision he has ever made, Percy flexes every muscle in his face to try to maintain a neutral expression. The result instead makes him look like he just willingly ate poison but he figures that at this point that’s the best he’s going to get.

Staring him down, Annabeth slowly asks, “Why do you need my phone number?”

Percy bites his lip as he fights to keep eye contact. He’s pretty sure that if he looks away right now Annabeth would take it as a sign to murder him. Desperately trying to find a way to avoid this, he decides to go with the logical approach. “Because we’re friends?”

At this point, Percy’s blush goes nuclear across his whole face as he bites his tongue to silence himself. Honestly, if he survives the next two minutes he’ll probably be better off never saying anything ever again.

Annabeth maintains her skeptical glare, save for the single brow that raises. “Is that what we are now?”

Percy’s eyes widen as he gulps nervously. If how hot his face is getting is any indicator he is seconds from passing out as every drop of blood he’s got rushes to his cheeks. He opens his mouth to respond but is betrayed as nothing comes out except for a soft wheeze. The very last functional part of his mind rolls its eyes at his heroic last words.

A wicked smirk grows on Annabeth’s face as she waits for an answer that doesn’t arrive. Turning back towards the exit, she looks over her shoulder at him as she leaves, flipping her hair in the process as she calls out, “Tell me when you figure it out.”

The door shuts with a click behind her, allowing Percy to stumble back into his seat in private. Right now, he’s pretty sure he couldn’t even stand if he wanted to. Apparently, all of the strength in his body has left the building with Annabeth. 

Left staring with a dazed expression at the door, Percy slowly reaches up with both hands to feel that his face is so hot he could probably grill something with it. Slowly and dramatically, he leans back onto the desk with his hands still over his face and lets out a barely audible, pained groan. He really should be given an award for Most Buffoonery Achieved In One Conversation.

A couple minutes later, he drags himself up and slowly shuffles out of the room. He figures it’s only polite to tell his roommates that they’re going to have to start writing his eulogy. 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Percy unplugs his headphones from his phone once the gym comes into view. He huffs out a cloud into the cold winter air as he walks down the sidewalk and checks the time on his phone, confirming that he’s a solid ten minutes early to practice. Early bird gets to swim and all that.

As he draws near to the building, he sees a figure in heavy winter clothes standing outside the door and looking down at their phone. Only as Percy makes it almost all the way to the door does he see that it is in fact Annabeth underneath at least two coats and a large knit scarf. Her nose is just peeking out the top and has taken on a red tint due to the cold. Percy feels himself start to smile as his chest fills with a warm, gooey sort of feeling.

Annabeth looks up as Percy arrives and offers a small wave with the hand not using her phone, which allows Percy to see that she is in fact wearing mittens. Percy nearly gives up the ghost on the spot.  
Before he can try to say anything, Annabeth sees him eye her mittens and cuts him off. “Okay, I got these from my roommate as a gift and I feel bad if I don’t use them every once in a while.” She has to pull down her scarf as she talks so she isn’t completely muffled, revealing cheeks also made rosy by the weather.

Percy snorts and replies, “Yeah I know what you mean. My mom gave me a sweater with my name on it and it’s definitely the least comfortable thing I wear regularly.”

Chuckling, Annabeth pockets her phone and turns towards the door. “So, this is the place, right?”

Percy moves around her and opens the door, propping it open for her to see. “Welcome to your new research center. Comes with free bleachers and risk of soaking school materials.”

Annabeth pales a little at the thought, as if she hadn’t considered that particular danger before. However, after only a second she moves into the building looking as determined as ever, leaving Percy to follow her in before letting the door swing shut behind them.

Inside, everything is pretty much the same as Percy is used to. Some people are already in the pool warming up, some are in the locker room just hanging out until practice starts, and Coach Hedge is at his desk warming up his voice to yell at students. Just another day at the pool.

Annabeth immediately takes off towards the bleachers on one side of the pool, leaving Percy to make his way into the locker room. Once inside, he goes through is regular routine of changing into his suit and joking around with whoever is next to him, but this time something feels slightly off. He’s got a tension in his shoulders and a small hum of nervous energy that he can’t quite shake, and by the time he walks back out into the gym with his swimming cap and goggles in hand he is solidly unsettled. Wishing he at least could tell where these nerves were coming from, he tries to shrug it off. Maybe he ate something nasty earlier and it’s just now making itself known. Percy nods to himself, figuring that to be a reasonable idea.

Percy makes it to the edge of the pool and runs through a couple stretches real quick before pulling on his cap and sliding his goggles on. Just before he jumps on in, he looks up and sees Annabeth surrounded by books and an open laptop, already furiously taking notes and constantly switching between looking around the room and staring at her screen. 

As he watches, Percy feels the nervous hum in his stomach jolt, then settle at an uncomfortable hum. Percy just stares blankly for a second, before letting out an exasperated sigh and pinching the bridge of his nose. Of course that was the reason. Great.

Suddenly, an “Alright, cupcakes!” erupts from across the water and Percy jumps, which inevitably causes a foot to slip and catapults him into the pool. He feels the painful slap of the water as he lands square on his stomach and lets out a pained groan, distorted by the water. That’s probably going to leave a mark.

Sheepishly, he slowly pokes his head out from under the water to check if Annabeth noticed his flop. He sees that she isn’t looking at him, but even from her position up in the bleachers he’s pretty sure he sees a smirk. He sinks back under the water, hoping to cool off his suddenly warm face, and pushes off to start doing his own warm up laps.

Once he comes up on the other side, Percy is suddenly caught up in the rigor of practice as Coach Hedge starts yelling at anything that moves and they all start doing drills to try to placate him. Any thoughts of previous mortifications slowly bleed out of Percy as he gets into the flow, feeling himself become more and more comfortable in the water until it’s hard to tell where he stops and the pool begins.

The minutes turn into hours as Percy forgets everything except the movement of the water and the burn of his muscles, until suddenly Hedge has stopped yelling and everyone is clambering out of the pool and the sounds of post-practice chattering replace the splashes of the pool.

Percy takes an extra lap on his own, just to really enjoy the sensation, before climbing out and following after his teammates. In the locker room, everything is just as comfortable as it has always been, so much so that Percy doesn’t even remember why he was nervous in the first place. Packing up his gear and switching into his normal-day clothes, he picks up his bag and makes his way out of the locker room.

Before he can escape completely from the gym, Percy’s attention is grabbed by the telltale sound of an irritating voice and the accompanying snickers. Groaning, he turns over his shoulder expecting to see The Dick Squad approaching with something stupid planned.

Instead, he sees them at the foot of the bleachers, blocking off the bottom of the ramp. Facing them, Annabeth is clutching her bag like she might start beating the three of them with it as they prevent her from leaving.

Percy’s heart rate doubles on the spot as he immediately changes course, almost tripping over himself in his haste. As he approaches at potentially the fastest walk he has ever pulled off, he yells out, “Is there a problem here fellas?”

The three spin to face him and all cross their arms at the same time. Behind them, Percy can see Annabeth with a cold expression that softens slightly in confusion as he stops in front of them. Guy In The Front, who unsurprisingly is in the middle of the group, raises his hands and adopts an innocent expression. “Woah, calm down there dude, we’re just trying to talk to this pretty lady.”

Percy raises a brow and crosses his own arms. “What if she doesn’t want to talk to you guys, huh?”

Guy In The Front shrugs and puts his hands in his pockets. “We just thought it would be fair to ask her why she would come to watch us practice for a couple hours. Isn’t that right?”

Behind him, Lefty, who now is standing on the right, pipes up with a nasally, “Yeah!” 

Guy In The Front starts to grow a leering smile. “But if I didn’t know any better, it kinda sounded like you have a problem with us Jackson.” He drops the smile and moves a step closer. “Are we gonna have an issue?”

Righty cracks his knuckles menacingly on cue as Percy weighs his odds. He’s trying to do an analysis of how many times he could punch each of them before he gets his nose broken when behind him he hears someone say, “Woah, let’s all calm down everybody.”

Turning, Percy sees Luke, the team captain, walking up behind him. Despite the fact that swim practice had just ended, his hair looks like it was styled for a surfer magazine as he walks up with a charming smile.

Guy In The Front takes a step back as Righty and Lefty both are suddenly unable to maintain eye contact with anyone. Luke casually slings his arm over Percy’s shoulder as he continues, “How about we all just relax and get all that post-practice adrenaline out of our systems somewhere else. Preferably in a nonviolent manner. Sound good to everyone?”

The three boys all nod sheepishly as Percy fights a growing smirk. Luke continues to stare the three down until they all awkwardly shuffle off. Turning to Annabeth, Luke flashes another perfect smile. “Sorry about them, they’re pretty harmless most of the time.”

Percy turns from watching The Dick Squad escape to look at Annabeth, expecting her cold glare to still be in place. However, Percy sees instead that her face is as flushed as it was outside and her eyes are blown wide open. He frowns and tilts his head, trying to understand what he missed.

Annabeth coughs and clears her throat before replying. “Yeah, that definitely came across.” She sounds much less sure of herself than usual and is suddenly having a hard time looking either of them in the face.

A sneaking suspicion starts to build in the back of Percy’s head, and he looks rapidly between Luke and Annabeth several times. There is no way what he thinks might be happening is actually happening.  
Oblivious to his sleuthing, Luke chuckles and offers a hand to Annabeth. “By the way, my name’s Luke.”

Annabeth hesitantly reaches out to shake it, and replies, “Annabeth.”

Luke cocks his head and repeats the name, as if rolling it around in his mouth. Percy’s eyes widen as Annabeth turns even pinker than before. A sickly feeling starts to grow in his stomach and Percy wonders if maybe he really did eat something gross earlier.

Luke is suddenly holding a pen in his hand, which he must have produced while Percy was busy running through everything he ate earlier that day. Uncapping it, Luke sticks out his hand again and asks, “May I?”

Annabeth’s brow furrows, but she takes his hand again. Luke casually rotates her hand so the back of it is facing up before he writes out a series of numbers on it. Percy’s jaw hits the floor as Annabeth’s face turns the color of a stop sign. Luke starts to take his hand back, but before he can Annabeth lunges forwards, grabbing his wrist like she’s about to judo flip him before she produces a pen and writes her own number on his wrist. Percy’s stomach suddenly feels like it’s full of acid as he watches this exchange. He decides that he should probably visit a doctor when he gets home.

Luke caps his pen and sticks it into his back pocket before slapping Percy on the back. “We should all hang out like this again, this was fun!” He winks at Annabeth before strolling out through the doors exiting the gym. Percy waits before the door closes before gagging loudly, causing Annabeth to slap him on the shoulder.

They both stare at the door for a couple seconds longer, before turning to look at each other. Annabeth defensively crosses her arms and sniffs derisively. “I didn’t need your help back there.”

Percy shrugs. “I didn’t say you did. Honestly you could probably demolish those guys if they ever tried anything.” He scratches the back of his head before continuing, “They are dicks though so I thought I’d help out if you decided to erase them.”

A brief exasperated smile flits across Annabeth’s face before she takes the last step onto ground level and makes for the doors. Percy allows himself a small victory grin before following Annabeth to the exit.

Outside, they stand in silence for a couple seconds as Percy responds to a text from Grover. As he does, he mutters, “So you’re just throwing your phone number at strangers now huh?”

Annabeth makes a disgusted sound and throws her hands up in the air. “Okay I was going to thank you for letting me into the practice but that’s so cancelled now.”

Percy lets out a laugh before shoving his hands into his pockets. Looking over, he can see that Annabeth is grinning too, and suddenly the sickly feeling in his stomach is draining out into the ground.

After standing in silence for another couple seconds Annabeth pulls out her phone and checks the time, before cursing to herself and shoving it back into her pocket. “Okay I’m gonna go study now in the library, I’ll see you later.”

She gives Percy another little wave with her mittens before turning and starting to walk off. Percy stares after her for a second, finding himself wishing that he could follow, before deciding he’s already embarrassed himself as much as he can today. He takes off after her, quickly catching up before slowing down to match her pace.

She looks over at him with a skeptical glance from underneath her scarf, before asking, “Did you forget something?”

Percy shakes his head and calmly replies, “Nope, I just thought that I could get some studying done before I turn in for the night.”

Annabeth continues to stare at him with a raised brow. Percy, however, just looks forwards and keeps on walking. After a second he adds, “Also, I heard that studying in a group can be very effective.”

Rolling her eyes, Annabeth replies, “I told you that, you can’t just pretend you heard that somewhere.” She gives up on staring at Percy and faces forwards with a frown buried under her scarf.

Silence fills the space between them for a bit before Annabeth turns to him again. “What if I didn’t want to study with a partner?”

Percy feels his stomach sink into his ankles as he struggles to maintain a straight face. “I guess I’d be studying on my own then.”

Annabeth goes quiet again, looking forwards as they walk together. After a minute of Percy feeling the tension grow like a weed, he opens his mouth, intending to apologize and go home. Before he can, Annabeth cuts him off with, “So you really want to help me with my studying?”

Percy tries to smother the huge grin threatening to break out onto the scene as his stomach remembers where it’s supposed to live. “I mean, it only seems fair at this point after all the tutoring, right?”

Annabeth huffs out a laugh. “Well, I suppose I’m open to some compensation.”

Percy manages to suppress the urge to fist pump, but it’s a close thing.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The library is a large, imposing building made of concrete slabs and right angles. Percy always thought it was kinda weird that they could make a library look threatening, but here it was all the same.  
He and Annabeth arrive in the main lobby to find the place mostly empty, with only a few late-night stragglers left. With basically the entire library to choose from, Annabeth walks over to a random desk with Percy in tow before dropping her piles of books onto it. Percy sits in one of the seats and is suddenly very conscious of the fact that he only has swimming gear on him instead of stuff to study with. Maybe Annabeth won’t notice.

Annabeth sits down across from him and leans forwards, folding her hands together. She looks across the desk at Percy with an expectant expression? “So, we’re going to study something?” She glances pointedly at his side of the desk, which is currently empty.

Frantically, Percy flails forwards and grabs the first of Annabeth’s books that he can reach. “Yeah, I thought we’d start with, uh.” He pauses to look at the cover of the textbook he’s filched. “Broke history?”

Annabeth rolls her eyes and mutters, “Hopeless.” She takes the book from him and starts flipping through it. “It says baroque history, genius. This is an architectural history book.”

This piques Percy’s interest. He hasn’t heard Annabeth mention anything about what she studies, mostly because they usually only meet to go over what he needs to be studying. Tilting his head curiously, he asks, “Isn’t baroque an art thing?”

Annabeth’s brows raise like she’s surprised. “I mean yeah, it is, but it really applies to the whole time period. There was baroque music too, but nobody likes that anymore.” She shifts and moves her chair forwards as she spins the book around so Percy can see what it says. “Baroque architecture specifically began in the late sixteenth century.”

She goes on to start taking Percy through the development of architectural styles and technologies of the Baroque period. At first, Percy really has no idea what she’s talking about most of the time, but the buildings look cool so that helps. Annabeth, however, really starts to capture his attention the longer she talks. She starts opening other textbooks and rapidly switching between them as references for each other and her hands start to move as she talks, making large movements to try to demonstrate the whichever construction technique she is explaining. Her hair is falling out of her ponytail again and her eyes are lit up with an energy Percy has never seen from her. With a start, he realizes that Annabeth looks like she is actually having fun.

This sudden change, along with the fact that Annabeth really is a good teacher, result in Percy hanging on her every word, suddenly extremely invested in how some dead dudes decided to try to build churches five hundred years ago. In the back of his mind, Percy decides that anything that can make Annabeth legitimately excited is something worth learning about. At some point, one of them, Percy forgets who exactly, makes a joke, leading to them firing back and forth at each other about the various quirks and habits of old, crusty architects. Percy has a grin that he doesn’t remember growing and Annabeth has one to match as she tries not to laugh at Percy’s face when he finds out that buttress is a real word.

Suddenly, a loud crackling sound fills the air as the PA system turns on, followed by a voice declaring, “The library will be closing in fifteen minutes. Please start making your way to the nearest exit.”  
Annabeth sighs and lowers the picture of blueprints she is holding. Her grin falls into a displeased grimace as she sighs, leaning back in her chair. Percy feels his own grin falter as the small happy bubble around their table pops.

As he looks around to see people streaming towards the exits, Annabeth groans. “It’s so dumb that libraries have a closing time.” She leans back forwards and props up her head in one hand, motioning with the other as she says, “I could get so much more work done if I could stay here all night.”

One side of Percy’s mouth quirks in distaste. “Yeah it’s kinda bogus that we have to leave before midnight. Like, does anybody even go to sleep this early?” Annabeth lets her head fall off of her hand and onto the desk with a dull thunk as she unhappily grunts in agreement.

Slouching back in his seat, Percy sighs. “I mean we could always stick it to the man and hide out here in the bathroom or something until everyone leaves. Free library all night after that.”

Annabeth stiffens for a second before she whips her head up to stare at him with wide eyes. Percy frowns and awkwardly looks behind him before looking back at her. “What?”

Slowly, a devious grin spreads across Annabeth’s face, causing a tremor of trepidation and a spike of energy in his chest. She suddenly lunges for her books, stuffing them all into her backpack as quickly as she can. Before Percy can ask what she’s doing, she shoves the last book into her bag before slamming her hands down onto the desk, looking Percy straight in the eye. “We’re going to the bathroom right now."

Percy’s frown deepens and he tilts his head in confusion. He blinks, then recoils in shock. “Annabeth that was a joke.”

Annabeth just smiles and runs around the desk, tugging at his arm until he stands up. “This is a terrible idea.” Still ignoring him, he takes off running towards the nearest bathroom, leaving Percy to roll his eyes before jogging after her. He has never met someone so willing to stick it to the library staff.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Ten minutes later, Percy is standing in a bathroom stall with his back to one of the walls. He has one foot on the ground and one foot propped up against the opposite wall with his bag resting on a hook on the door. Across from him, Annabeth is in the same position with her backpack sitting on the lowered toilet seat, leaving them to face each other as they wait in a dingy stall.

“Annabeth this is nasty.”

“I know.”

“People poop in here.”

“I know, Percy.”

“Someone could have peed on the walls and we wouldn’t even know.”

Annabeth frowns and shifts so she can kick his elbow, saying, “Gross, stop.” Percy smirks and checks his phone, which tells him the library closes in five minutes. Sighing, he pockets it again and starts looking at the tiled pattern on the floor. Which, to be honest, looks like it has definitely been peed on. Percy wrinkles his nose. Public bathrooms really are the worst.

The next couple minutes pass in relative silence, save for the occasional creak of the stall walls as Percy or Annabeth shift their position. Eventually, Percy huffs tiredly. “You know, the fun really got sucked out of this after the twelfth minute I think.”

Annabeth rolls her eyes. “Oh sorry, next time we’ll wait until eleven minutes before the library closes.”

Percy snorts. “I’m just saying, this really is a stupid idea.”

Glaring at him, Annabeth shifts like she’s considering kicking him again. “Well maybe you should come up with the ideas for once.”

Percy glares back and crosses his arms. “Yeah, maybe I-”

The sound of wood knocking against the door to the bathroom cuts him off. He looks at wide-eyed to Annabeth, who frantically gestures at him to pick up his foot on the ground. Pushing against the opposite wall with one foot, Percy quickly picks up the other and braces it against the far wall as well, wedging himself between the two sides of the stall. Looking to his right, he sees Annabeth has copied his position. Nervous energy starts coursing through his body as his heart rate picks up noticeably.

A few seconds later, he hears the telltale creaking sound of the door opening, followed by the clatter of a cart rolling into the room. The cart stops on the other side of the bathroom as steps begin moving slowly across the room, punctuated by on occasional squeaking sound.

Percy’s eyes widen as the steps begin to move closer as he looks to Annabeth, who slowly moves one hand up to her lips to extend one finger in a silent ‘shh’ motion. Percy looks to the door, which they left just slightly open to try to avoid being conspicuous.

The steps and the squeaks draw closer at maddeningly slow pace. Even though it hasn’t even been a minute yet, Percy is starting to really feel the burn in his legs. Looking over at Annabeth, he can see her legs are starting to shake slightly and her face is slowly turning red. At this point Percy is starting to hope that there is a murderer or something in the room instead of just the world’s slowest janitor.  
Another footstep lands directly outside the stall, causing Percy to look up to the slight crack left available at the stall door. By now his heart feels like a jackhammer, causing a rush he can hear in his ears. Through it, he can see what he thinks could be somebody’s back, along with a flash of motion and the squeak he heard a few times already. As he watches, the shape shifts, bringing a bottle of windex into view before the figure shuffles out of sight again.

After another minute of the most stressful wall sits Percy has ever done in his life, the footsteps retreat towards the doorway. On the way, the rolling sound from the cart starts again before he hears the door open and close, leaving the room in silence.

Percy moves to lower himself to the ground when he sees Annabeth frantically gesture at him to freeze. He manages to do so but lets out an involuntary wheeze as he re-wedges himself between the walls. Looking up at Annabeth, he sees her hold up four fingers, before slowly counting down. When she reaches zero, she nods to Percy and lowers herself to the ground quietly. Percy attempts to replicate this, but instead falls to the ground with a quiet “Oof.”

Annabeth rolls her eyes before opening the door slightly to peak out. After a second, she backs up from the door before turning to help Percy up as she whispers, “Okay I think we’re good but we should probably hang out here for a couple more minutes.”

Percy stands back up and presses himself to the wall, rubbing his thighs as he does to try to ease the soreness he knows will be present tomorrow. He makes eye contact with Annabeth and slowly grows a mischievous smile. “This was a great idea.”

Annabeth rolls her eyes again but snorts, causing Percy to start snickering quietly. She slaps his arm, which causes him to laugh harder, leading to her to start chuckling. They both lean back on their respective nasty stall walls, still giggling as they wait.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Once Annabeth’s phone reads 12:20, she opens the door and creeps out of the bathroom with Percy close behind, eager to get out. Thirty-five minutes in a public bathroom for any reason is way to long in his book.

Annabeth peaks her head around the corner before turning back to Percy. “Everything looks all clear, but I guess we can’t really know if everyone is gone.”  
Percy looks in either direction before cupping his hands at his mouth and shouting, “Anybody home?”

Annabeth flinches violently and frantically starts looking in every direction for an escape. When nobody responds after a couples seconds, she calms down slightly and turns to Percy with a murderous glare.

Percy shrugs innocently. “Guess they’re gone.” Annabeth makes a disgusted sound and stalks away towards the closest desk. A smirk breaks through Percy’s innocent facade as he follows her.  
Sitting at the desk, Annabeth rubs her temples as Percy sits on the other side. After a second, she starts pulling her books back out before cracking one open and asking, “Okay, where were we?”

Percy tilts his head and squints in thought for a moment, before snapping and replying, “You were telling me about buttresses.”

Annabeth sighs with an exasperated grin curling at one side of her mouth. “Right.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

They decide to pack up around 2 AM. By this point Annabeth has guided Percy all the way through the Baroque period and its various architectural motifs, though he’s pretty sure she skipped most of the in depth stuff. He appreciates this though because his brain feels like a soggy sponge ready to drip trivia about buildings out his nose at any second.

They successfully sneak out the doors without anyone walking by outside to see them, successfully completing their library heist. Outside, Annabeth pauses and looks up at the night sky, and Percy finds himself gazing at her instead. She still has a small smile lingering on her face, so faint Percy thinks she might not even notice that it’s there. As she looks up at the stars her curls, freed from their elastic prison as they went into the second hour of studying, tumble freely down her shoulders. Percy feels himself heat up again just looking at her, but compared to the embarrassed flood of heat before this feels more like he’s standing next to a space heater, comfortably warming him all over.

As Percy stares at her, she breathes out a puff of warm air before her eyes flit over to look at him. Percy feels a sudden stab of panic as he averts his eyes as fast as possible, hoping that she doesn’t think he was staring at her. Which he definitely was. Shit.

Desperately searching for something else to look at, he pulls out his phone to see he has another text from Grover. He sighs in relief as he unlocks his phone to answer it.   
As he types away on his screen, he hears Annabeth sigh and say, “Alright, give me your phone.”

Percy’s brow raises as he looks up to find Annabeth facing him with her hand outstretched expectantly. He stares at her hand for a second before looking back up at her. “Uh, what?”

Annabeth stares him down and raises a brow, raising her hand a little to emphasize it. Percy stares at it again for a couple seconds before shrugging and handing the device to her. He’s pretty sure that he doesn’t have anything embarrassing immediately available on there. Probably.

Annabeth takes his phone and swipes at it a couple times before tapping and starting to type something. Percy tries to move closer to see what she’s up to, but she backs away and shoots him a warning glare before he can see the screen. Raising his hands in surrender, he backs up a step and tries to quell the nervous energy starting to grow in his chest.

A few seconds later, Annabeth finishes whatever she’s doing and hands the phone back to Percy. Looking down at the screen, he sees a contact screen titled ‘Annabeth’ with a phone number underneath. The nervous energy drains out of him, along with any other emotion, leaving him with only dumb shock to work with. 

He opens his mouth, but no sound comes out. Swallowing, he clears his throat and tries again. “Whose number is this?”

Annabeth scoffs and crosses her arms. “It’s mine, obviously.” Percy just stares at her dumbfounded until her cheeks redden just a little and she shrugs. “Okay, I’m trying to say that this wasn’t completely awful and I could be willing to do it again.”

She turns away from Percy slightly and breaks eye contact. “Plus, friends should have each other’s phone numbers, right?”

Percy stares blankly before he feels his cheeks spread into an ear splitting grin. The chill of the night air is completely forgotten as he feels like he could start glowing at any second. Annabeth’s eyes flicker over to his, before she looks away again and buries her face in her scarf. Percy looks down at his phone again and says, “You just admitted I was right about something.”

Looking up, he sees Annabeth frown incredulously before rolling her eyes so hard he thinks it might have hurt. She makes a disgusted sound and starts to walk towards him with her hand out. “I made a mistake, give that back.”

Percy dances out of her reach and holds his phone up in the air, yelling, “Nope! No take-backs, sorry, we’re friends now!”

Annabeth is smiling now as she quickly gives up on trying to steal Percy’s phone. She shoves her hands into her pockets and just shakes her head resignedly, then starts to walk off. After a couple steps she turns over her shoulder and says “Don’t forget to text me the swim schedule then doofus.”

Percy just waves excitedly, accidentally almost throwing his phone in the process. By the time he secures his phone and is sure it isn’t about to shatter, Annabeth has walked around a corner and disappeared. Filled with excitement to the point he’s nearly giddy, he quickly pulls up Annabeth’s contact info before typing out a message.

 

you still didnt deny that i was right

God damn it Percy

 

Percy’s smile lasts all the way back to his dorm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey gang, sorry that this chapter is a week late. I've been busy studying for and taking finals, but I'm finally in spring break so I shouldn't have to worry about that for a while. Hopefully that will even let me put up the next chapter faster than normal to try to compensate but we'll see how it goes. Also hopefully no one reading this likes baroque music but I feel like as a music major I'm allowed to shit on that genre because like. God it's the worst. Anyways I hope you guys enjoy this chapter and thank you to anyone who has left a comment so far! They really help with the whole motivation thing.


	5. Percy Figures It Out

Percy’s phone vibrates, buried deep in his pocket. He’s currently in his room staring blankly at the old TV in the corner. Earlier in the day, Leo loudly proclaimed that they would be having a “Smash Day” so logically they’ve been digitally demolishing each other all morning. Percy is sitting off to the side across from Jason, with Frank and Leo sitting on the ground in the middle of the room. Between them is Frank’s girlfriend, Hazel, who is currently trying to avoid any flying elbows while mashing her own controller. They only started dating a few weeks ago, a fact which makes Percy prouder than maybe he should be.

Having been destroyed already in their most recent match, Percy gladly fishes out his phone to have something else to do besides listen to Frank and Leo scream at each other. On his screen, the name ‘Annabeth’ flashes up at him. His breath hitches as he quickly swipes to open the notification, fumbling and nearly dropping it in the process. He freezes for a second and looks up, but everyone else is so engrossed in the game that nobody notices. Percy sighs quietly in relief and leans back in his chair.

Looking at the screen, he sees it open to a message from Annabeth.

**I swear to god the tutoring staff here are the worst**

Percy’s mouth starts to quirk up into a smile. Over the past week he and Annabeth have been texting more and more, and to Percy’s delight they’ve officially moved past the phase of awkardly sending greeting texts and instead just diving into the meat of whatever shit they’re going to shoot. 

He looks up again before responding, just to make sure no one has noticed anything. He may or may not be trying to hide that he’s texting Annabeth from his roommates just a little, but knowing them he feels like that probably isn’t a weird thing to do. Totally just a rational adult decision.

**yeah i know what you mean**   
**the tutor i have is really on my ass all the time**

The sound of an explosion comes blasting out of the TV as Leo groans and Hazel whoops. Jason, apparently eliminated, sighs and drops his controller as Leo leans forward into the signature Gamer Position while muttering promises of vengeance. Percy’s phone jumps in his hand again and he looks away from the action.

**You’re welcome for that by the way**

**How many classes would you have failed by now?**

**pfff only like**   
**two maybe**   
**three tops for sure**

**You’re an inspiration to us all**

Percy huffs out a laugh before he can stop himself, then quickly looks up to see if the jig is up. Across the room, Jason looks over from the TV, eyes squinted suspiciously. Quickly breaking off eye contact, Percy raises his eyebrows in a totally-not-exaggerated expression of innocence. Jason tilts his head curiously, but after a second turns back to the TV. Sighing quietly in relief, he starts typing again. He’s amazing at getting away with things.

**i try my best**   
**anyways what did your boss do this time**

Annabeth’s typing bubble starts popping up, and after ten seconds Percy realizes he’s in for a solid paragraph in the near future. He looks up just in time to Jason stand up and stretch his back before he ambles over to the door. Hand on the doorknob, Jason calls out, “I’m going to go get a drink, anyone else want one?”

Another explosion echoes through the room as Frank falls backwards, clutching his chest like he’s been shot. Next to him, Leo starts laughing maniacally as Hazel hunches forward, brow furrowed and the tip of her tongue poking out of the side of her mouth.

Jason and Percy lock eyes as Jason raises a brow exasperatedly. Percy shrugs and replies, “I’ll take a Dr Pepper if you’re getting something.”

Jason nods tiredly to himself and walks out of the room as Frank starts chanting, “Kick his ass! Kick his ass!” Somehow Hazel and Leo have both started sweating and in the glow of the TV are starting to approach ‘glistening’ territory. Percy frowns in disgust and scoots his chair backwards as his phone vibrates again. Deciding he’s solidly out of the splash zone, he kicks his feet up onto a nearby chair desk and opens his phone.

**I mean most other people come in for a specific class, right? But we were getting pretty full in one of the classes that I help tutor for, so they decided that we should open up a few more sections, but instead of giving me any more to teach they gave it to some other guy even though I’ve been tutoring for longer and I can definitely teach better than he can. It’s ridiculous! He’s literally stealing my students!**

A fond smile starts creeping across Percy’s face. Honestly though, it’s practically habit at this point, which is a fact that Percy is stubbornly not thinking about.

**im pretty sure youre the only person ive ever met who gets  
upset because they have less work to do**

Percy locks his phone starts to look up, but looks back down as his phone buzzes immediately. Raising an eyebrow, he shrugs and unlocks his phone again. In the background Hazel and Leo are just screaming at each other at this point and he’s pretty sure Frank is still on the ground.

**Yeah I’m mad because it’s so unfair! I’m literally twice the teacher he is but they give him the classes that I deserve to have**

Percy rolls his eyes and starts to type a snarky reply before he stops, fingers hovering over the keyboard. He scrolls up and rereads Annabeth’s messages, before dropping his phone to his lap and sighing. Even Percy can tell that Annabeth is legitimately upset and he won awards at his high school for Most Oblivious Dude On The Planet. Quickly deleting his aborted sentence, Percy stares at his screen and bites his lip for a second before he begins to type out a new one.

**hey in all seriousness your bosses are just missing out  
like i can say from experience that you could tutor circles  
around this chump and i havent even met the dude  
if the tutoring staff cant see that then thats their problem  
because youre gonna kick ass in any section you teach**

Caught up in the momentum of his motivational speech, Percy slams the send button with a soaring feeling of righteousness. A second later Percy blinks, then frantically rereads what he sent. A cold horror starts seeping down his spine as he realizes what an overly attached freak he sounds like. He’s known Annabeth for less than two months, he can’t go around sounding like a life coach on PCP.

He frantically starts tapping at the screen, hoping maybe he can delete the messages before she reads them when a can of soda slams into his stomach, punching out of him a pained oof. Looking up, he sees Jason standing above him with a soda can of his own in hand. Raising the soda up weakly, he starts to thank him when suddenly Jason swipes the phone out of his other hand, causing the sentence to instead come out as, “Thanks broooh shit wait!”

He lunges for his phone, but Jason dances backwards out of his reach. “Oh what’s this, texting the tutor hm?” Percy drops his soda to the ground and runs at Jason with his hands out but Jason just plants a palm on Percy’s face and keeps him at bay. Percy starts swiping with his hands to try to club Jason’s stupid head as he says, “Dang these conversations go back weeks!” Looking back at Percy, he smirks and raises an eyebrow. “Have you been holding out on us?”

Percy punches Jason in the crook of his elbow, causing his arm to buckle. Lunging forward, he snatches his phone back out of Jason’s hand and then punches him in the shoulder for good measure. Pocketing his phone, Percy attempts to aloofly walk away from Jason while giving him the most cutting stink eye possible. He’s pretty sure the two cancel each other out a little bit, but he does his best.

Retreating back to his seat, Percy sits down with a huff and crosses his arms. Still glaring at Jason, he watches as his dumb idiot roommate drags his seat across the room to be next to his. Jason sits and claps his hand on Percy’s shoulder, smirk still solidly in place. “You know, some of those texts were surprisingly wholesome.”

Percy sniffs derisively and looks back towards the TV. “I don’t know what you’re talking about my man.” He can feel a blush building and threatening to spread across his cheeks, but maybe if he just doesn’t look at Jason it will go away.

From the edge of his vision Percy sees Jason continue to stare at him for a couple seconds before rolling his eyes and pulling out his own phone. Sighing in relief, Percy looks back towards the TV where now Hazel and Leo are both standing, Leo hopping from foot to foot and Hazel looking like she could pass out at any second. On the ground, Frank is face down and clutching Hazel’s foot, still yelling a muffled “Kick his ass!” into the floor. Percy nods to himself. This seems about right.

Suddenly, the sound of guitars and heavy drum set start blasting in the room. Looking over, Percy sees Jason staring right at him as he points his phone speaker towards him. A sadistic grin starts to spread across Jason’s face as a voice starts to sing, “I’ve got it bad, got it bad, got it bad, I’m hot for teacher!”

Percy feels the simmering warmth in his cheeks erupt into a raging blush as his face feels lit it’s on fire. Jason just cackles as Percy stares at him, too mortified to move. Desperate to escape this situation, Percy starts looking around for something to distract Jason. Right now he’s pretty sure that murder is a justifiable solution, but as he starts to lean forward to throttle Jason to death like he deserves all chaos breaks loose. 

Leo yells “Shit!” so loud that Percy’s pretty sure that tinnitus is starting to set in while Hazel screams in victory and leaps in the air. Unfortunately, Frank’s hands are still attached to Hazel, causing her to land off-balance and teeter precariously backwards. Leo lunges forwards to help, but as Hazel grabs his arm to right herself she accidentally flings Leo behind her, effectively turning Leo into a human-sized projectile aimed right at Jason.

Percy watches as Leo hits Jason with a tackle that would have made the NFL proud. Jason is carried right out of his seat and hits the ground with a thud, gasping for the air that was rudely knocked out of him. Leo rolls off of him and busts up laughing as Hazel resumes her victory dance. Looking down at Jason’s now incredibly red face, Percy feels not a single shred of pity. The man earned his fate.

Smug grin firmly in place, Percy idly checks his phone and blinks in surprise to see two notifications already waiting for him. Figuring he missed them while being unfairly harassed, he shrugs and opens the messages.

**You’re damn right I could tutor circles around him**

Percy sighs and rolls his eyes. He figures if she’s still this annoyingly confident then she’ll be fine. He looks down to read the next message, sent over a minute after the first one.

**Thanks for the support though. Glad to know someone’s on my team**

Percy’s fingers fly over the keyboard, all thoughts of the human dogpile in front of him vanishing.

**oh thats a great idea actually  
next tutoring session ill show up with a big jersey with your  
face on it**

Something bumps his leg as he hears shuffling around him. It probably was Jason trying to peel himself off of the floor, but Percy isn’t really paying attention to anything else right now except the typing bubble that just appeared on his screen.

**And that officially ruins that sentiment That might be a new record for the fastest dumb thing you’ve said**

Percy’s face stretches into a dopey grin that he really just can’t help. It isn’t his fault anymore, he swears. However, he’s not about to give up on getting the last word in on Annabeth every once in a while.

**no its too late youre welcome**

He locks his phone and pockets it just as Leo throws a remote at him for the next round, looking murderous as he does so. Percy figures he’s probably gonna get steamrolled in Leo’s quest for vengeance but picks a character anyways.

Looking over, he locks eyes with Jason again, who smirks but thankfully says nothing as he selects his own fighter. Percy glares at him for a second, before deciding that he’s still definitely justified to slap him in the back of the head if he doesn’t do it too hard.

 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 

Percy strolls into the grocery store later that night on his weekly quest to make sure he has something to eat. Next to him, Grover is looking at his shopping list and muttering the names of several meat substitutes that he’s pretty sure he’s never heard of.

Percy turns towards the milk aisle first, rehearsing his well-worn route through the store. Generally he only buys snacks and some cereal for whenever he’s too lazy to go to the on-campus dining hall. Now that he thinks about it, Percy is grateful he swims all the time so he can eat just whatever garbage he wants and it usually turns out okay.

Walking up to the freezer section of the store, Percy looks down the rows of various brands of milk, basking in the frigid air radiating off of the transparent doors. On the other side of the glass, a wall of nearly identical cartons of milk sit, all with different labels and brands. Percy’s brow furrows and he bites his lip in thought as he starts scanning the different labels. Why are there so many different kinds of milk? If it’s only two percent milk then what’s the rest of it made out of? Percy sighs and drags a hand across his face. Milk is ridiculous.

As he examines the wall of milk, one carton with a surprisingly low price tag catches his eye. Raising his eyebrows in surprise, he opens the door and pulls it out, letting the door thud shut on its own. Turning it in his hand, Percy examines the carton for an expiration date, but after a couple seconds realizes the carton just doesn’t have one.

Looking over his shoulder, he sees Grover farther down the aisle with an already half-full cart. He calls out, “Hey if a carton of milk doesn’t have an expiration date that means it doesn’t go bad, right?”  
Without looking at him, Grover yells back, “Put it back, dude.” He then opens up a door and grabs a carton of rice milk or something, Percy doesn’t know.

Huffing petulantly, Percy pouts to himself and looks back down at the milk in his hands. He quirks his mouth into a resigned expression and goes to open the door again before he stops as an idea pops into his head.

He reaches into his pocket and whips out his phone, unlocking it with one hand while still holding the questionable milk in the other. His hand is in fact starting to hurt from the cold but he’s too determined to put it down now.

Opening up his messages with Annabeth, he manages to slowly type out a message with one hand.

**hey so if a carton of milk doesnt have an expiration date  
it that means it doesnt expire right**

Only a second later, Percy sees the typing bubble appear. He bites his lip in anticipation while switching which hand holds the phone and which hand holds the milk because it was starting to get really cold and he’s only human, give him a break. Readjustment completed, he looks back at his phone just as it buzzes in his hands.

**Put it back Percy**

Percy’s pout comes back full force as he stares down at her response.

**aw come on its half off and everything**

**I’m just saying it really isn’t the wise thing to do Like you will for sure get food poisoning**

Percy rolls his eyes. He’s had food poisoning twice and it’s not like it killed him either time.

**fine whatever wise girl  
ill just throw away this discount**

**Don’t call me Wise Girl**

Smirking, Percy starts to type out another message definitely containing another ‘Wise Girl’ when from over his shoulder he hears, “Oh I like her already.”

Percy yelps and spins around to see Grover looking down at his phone with a smug expression. Looking up to meet his eyes, Grover continues, “I mean first she’s pretty but now she’s smarter than you too? She’s perfectly your type!”

Percy makes a disgusted sound in the back of his throat and rolls his eyes. Locking his phone, he turns away and slides open the milk door again. Halfway through setting the carton back onto the shelf, he pauses and frowns. “Wait, what do you mean she’s perfectly my type? I don’t have a type.”

Grover moves up next to him and claps a hand down onto his shoulder. “Percy, every single girl you’ve had a crush on since middle school has been way smarter than you and if you haven’t realized that by now that just kinda proves my point.”

Percy tilts his head and his eyes glaze over as he mentally runs through the list of people he’s liked since he met Grover. Slowly, his face morphs into an expression of terror as Grover’s splits into a smile of pure glee. Percy grabs his head with his hands and lets out a strangled, “Oh god you’re right.”

Grover pats him on the arm again, before saying, “If it makes you feel any better, you’re pretty much the last person to figure it out.” He then cheerfully makes his way farther down the aisle.

Percy groans and lowers his head onto the glass door in front of him with a thud. The cool surface currently feels amazing against the searing heat of his blush. Maybe if he jumped into the freezer his face wouldn’t always feel like it was melting. Looking through the glass, he sees another two percent milk carton on the other side of the glass. Percy groans and whines, “I still don’t know what that means,” before peeling himself off the door and following Grover deeper into the store.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woah hey gang it’s been a minute huh. Sorry for that longer than usual delay, I got struck with a case of “Oh god I’m really writing a whole-ass story oh god oh shit” but the good news is I’ve worked past that mostly and I’m back to writing again! Plus writing in my free time is actually fun and reading all of the reviews you guys leave actually helps me out a lot with motivation! Thanks for those again! Plus I’ve discovered that writing for fun is more fun (ironically) than forcing myself into a schedule, but I’m gonna try to have relatively normal updates anyways. Anyways in case anyone was worried I’m still fully committed to writing this thing to the end, and I’ve even started coming up with another AU which is gonna be a whole ‘nother commitment to do, but if you guys like this one I’ll probably maybe do it. On a different note, who do you guys think the halfblood gang mains in smash? Leo’s gotta be an Incineroar main right? Jason is probably like Chrom or something who knows. Anyways see you guys next time!


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